Rock versus Classical Music
Stephen Davies · Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism · 1999
In this paper I consider the issue whether rock and music require different criteria for their appreciation and evaluation. I address this issue through a consideration of Bruce Baugh's Prolegomena to Any Aesthetics of Rock Music.' I consider Baugh's position because it represents a widely held viewpoint. Versions of it are held by unreflective rock fans and professional commentators on the rock scene alike. Ideas central to Baugh's positive account of rock music-for instance, that it has a nonrational, Dionysian appeal that depends on its power and rhythm-are presented by a wide range of rock's defenders, from proto-rock-journalist Richard Meltzer to musicologists Susan McClary and Robert Walser to rock critic and historian Robert Palmer, as well as by its critics, for example, Allan Bloom.2 Nevertheless, I think that this position is mistaken. I suggest that, at the level of generality presupposed by classifications as broad as classical and rock, it is not distinctive aesthetics that separate these types.